SMS forwarding using Phone Leash

Recently, I have changed my mobile phone service provider for an offer that cannot be refused. After approximately a month, I have noticed that I was not able to receive text messages from my family from abroad. The first step was to contact the provider and ask why suddenly, after one month the service has stopped working. After a couple of days they got back to me saying that the problem is not on their side and it was a weird thing for them as well. I have also contacted my family's provider and they were useless in sorting out the problem.

I was playing with the idea of going back to my previous provider but, I realized that it would not worth it, so I have decided to look for an alternative solution. After a short research, I concluded that SMS forwarding is the solution. I was thinking that Tasker might offer the service, but it was time consuming to find a way to reply to SMS' so I gave up the idea. I did a quick search on the Internet and I found Phone Leash which  was designed especially to offer the service that I needed. It is very easy to install it and set up.

It can be downloaded from:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gearandroid.phoneleashfree&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5nZWFyYW5kcm9pZC5waG9uZWxlYXNoZnJlZSJd

It costs approx £2 but, it is well worth the money. I spare 30 pence on each SMS and I have already recovered the investment from the saving.

Once installed, there are two options:

1. Forward the SMS as SMS to a different number
2. Forward the SMS as email to an email address (in this case a data connection is necessary)

As extra options you have: Forward MMS, send notifications of low battery, set up SMS forwarding only for certain numbers and many more. 

As main advantages I could mention:

• easy way to reply to SMS', I just need to reply to the email
• a SMS' to my family costs only 10 pence compared to 40 pence with my current provider
• I can receive/reply to SMS' from the computer
• I can use the new number for online orders when I don't want to give out my real number (prevent spam)

As a main disadvantage, you need a spare phone that runs Android (it was not a problem for me since I always keep my old phone for testing).

Remote controlling home PC using TeamViewer and Wake on WAN.

I spent some time a while ago wondering whether I should enable remote controlling on my PC and I reached the conclusion that it is worth it. Nowadays I can access my PC from anywhere using my tablet or even my phone.

In order to achieve the above I am using TeamViewer (which is free for personal use) and Wol Wake on Lan Wan by Brobble from Google Play.

The steps that I have followed are:

1. Set up account, install and configure TeamViewer with auto-login
2. Set up the router for port forwarding
3. Download the application from Google Play
4. Set up a profile for the app that would send the wake up packet to my route

No. 1 is pretty easy and I will not detail it. It is a straight forward process.

My router is from O2 and the in order to set it up for port forwarding the following steps are necessary:

• Login to the router with an administrative account
• Find Toolbox/ Game and application sharing
• Chose Create a New Game or Application
• Name it WOL and chose Manual Entry of Port Maps followed by Next
• Protocol - chose UDP
• Port range 9 - 9
• Translate to 9
• Trigger protocol - Any
• Click Add and Apply
• Chose the task Assign a game or application to a local network device
• Chose as Game or Application WOL
• As Device chose the laptop that you want to wake up
• Take a note of the MAC address of the laptop

In order to complete number you will need to setup the profile as follows{

• Name: whatever you wish, not important
• MAC: the MAC address of the laptop
• IP or Domain: your external IP or domain if you are using a forwarding service as DynDNS (you can find your external IP using a service as ipchicken.com)
• Port: 9
• Send Multiple: ticked
• Packet count: 5
• Interval: 1
• Tap Save

That's it. Oh yes, one more important thing, the laptop needs to be connected through a wire and not by Wireless to the router. 

UPDATE: you will need to make some changes on your O2 router in order to allow you to add a static ARP otherwise when the router re-starts or after a certain time of inactivity the above method will not work. I will not add this details here, you can use Google to find the way to do that.

Nook Simply Touch - is it worth rooting?

A couple of days ago I have bought the Nook Simple Touch. For various reasons that I am not really concerned about Barnes and Noble have decided to drop the price for it to £29. Before I bought it I was thinking that I already have 3-4 tablets and whether I need one or not. Well, I was tempted to say that I did not really need a new one, however because of the price drop I was considering buying one. I did a bit of research and I found out that it is very easy to root it and install Amazon Kindle on it so, I've decided to go ahead and buy it. I bought it from John Lewis and it was delivered next day so, as soon as I arrived home I decided to have a look and try to root it. I can say it without any kind of hesitation that it was worth it. I already have quite a lot of books on Kindle and the the Kindle application works fine on it. There is a small problem when switching pages but it is still worth it.
I tested before E-book readers in shops but I have never considered buying one, however after spending half a day under the sun I realize now that it is a big difference. The reading experience is so much better with an E-Book reader when outside, almost no reflection at all and the size of the screen is almost perfect. I still need to get used to the idea that it is not a tablet but as a book replacement it is wonderful.

For those of you that are thinking to root the device, I have used the following links for instructions:

http://lifehacker.com/5889158/turn-a-99-nook-into-a-fully-fledged-android-tablet-in-four-easy-steps

http://lifehacker.com/5926798/turn-your-rooted-nook-into-the-ultimate-ereader-with-these-10-apps

I have tested ES File Manager, Kindle and Search Market and they work fine. I installed a spare 8 GB card that I already had and I am thinking to download all the books that I had on Kindle to it.

I am thinking also to install the No Refresh mod but I am not sure at the moment about the need of it. If you are curious about what it is, have a look on the following link:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/23/hack-enables-fast-refresh-mode-on-nook-simple-touch-video/


Currently the Nook is £29, my advice is to grab one if you can. Definitely you will not regret it.

About?

I started this blog to keep track of my small projects. I was thinking to use Evernote or any other note taking application but I have decided that actually a blog is a better solution. As I use also quite a lot of blog posts when I do the research for my projects, I thought that others might find interesting things here.

If you are reading this, I wish to welcome you on my blog and I hope that the information you will find here will help you in one way or another. 

Csaba